Mother tells senate inquiry that sterilising her disabled daughter was a blessing

A mother with a disabled daughter has told a senate inquiry that quality of life must take priority over fertility. Picture: Thinkstock Source: Supplied

GROUPS concerned about preserving the fertility rights of disabled people should be focused on more important quality of life issues, an Australian mother says.

The unnamed mother has written a submission to a Senate inquiry saying that dealing with the menstruation of her daughter, who suffers from moderate intellectual disability, had pushed her close to "breaking point".

The community affairs references committee inquiry is examining the involuntary or coerced sterilisation of people with disabilities in Australia.

"She refuses point blank to wear a bra, and there was no way in the world she would tolerate wearing a pad in her underwear," the mother said.

"It was impossible for school to be able to manage her."

The mother said society had "washed its hands of the responsibility of children like mine".

"No one jumps up and down about her right to be able to live independently (which she has no chance of doing in Australia because places just don't exist)," she said.

"They don't jump up and down about her right to have a job or a meaningful adult life."

The mother said allowing a medical procedure to stop her daughter's periods "for the rest of her life would only be a blessing to her and to me".

"This should not be a legal problem," she said.

"This should be between the person with a disability, their family and their doctors."

The mother said families who take their disabled children overseas to have them sterilised should not be harshly judged.

"You don't know the half of it," she said.

"You don't lie awake at night worrying about them being abused and getting pregnant, or how you are going to manage for the next day, week, month and year caring for them."

The committee is seeking written submissions from the public until February 22 and is due to report back in April.

To date it's received four submissions, including one from the Australian Human Rights Commission saying it has long had concerns about the sterilisation of women with a disability without their informed consent.

The commission has proposed national legislation that criminalises the sterilisation of adults with disability without their free consent, except in the cases where there is a serious threat to life or health.

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Comments on this story

Honesty of vic Posted at 9:31 PM December 03, 2012

I was told recently at a government meeting that a significantly intellectually disabled person who cannot care for themselves cannot be sterillised and can have as many children as they can produce, with their aging parents being forced to care for them as well. How can a person who is unable to survive without a carer and who will never have any understanding of the responsibilities of caring for a baby be allowed to force another person to have to raise their offspring? Whose rights are being removed here?

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